


One Imagines, One Remembers The Fear

by Sweety_Mutant



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, POV Alternating, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-15 20:13:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7236796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweety_Mutant/pseuds/Sweety_Mutant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in answer to this prompt:<br/>Take place during the scene where Jack and Charles are sitting in the fort with the gold after Jack tricked Charles into capturing a slave ship. They talk and Charles reveals how he was raped as a slave ether by Albinus himself or by his men or both. Jack comforts him. Can be Jack/Charles or gen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Imagine- Jack

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> So, this is my first contribution to the Pirate Prompts 2016. I hope it will please the anon that asked for it.  
> As requested, it is a non-con, underage story, so mind the warnings sweethearts. 
> 
> As always, I do not own Black Sails, merely play with the characters. Also, I want to cuddle Charles.  
> Enjoy!

When he stepped out of the room, Jack took a breath as deep as possible. He had felt prisoner of this gold, sitting there and _laughing at him_ , at his incompetence. He felt unwell, sickened by Charles’s words. He could not bring himself to regret his decision, it was necessary, yet he was ashamed.

Charles and him had agreed to have a drink together, an excuse to get out of the fort. To breathe. To talk about Nassau’s future. To talk about the repairs… No. To sulk and ponder their earlier words, their past.

Jack was no fool. As they walked into the daylight, making their way to the tavern, Jack could not help but relive the last few minutes in his head. The dim glow of the underground room’s lamps, the shining gold, reflecting on their faces and painting their skin with too warm shades. Charles’s voice, a low rumble that flowed harsh, yet without resentment and so honest. Jack flinched at the memory of the words carried by this voice. He was no fool indeed, and he had understood.

He could picture everything that stood hidden between the lines. _It isn’t the violence._ He could see… _It isn’t the labour._ Worst of all he could feel. _The hunger or the heat or the chains_. His skin and blood were responding to his imagination’s prompts.   _You know what those men fear right now?_ He knew. Oh God he knew.

_Reasons never explained._

Charles seemed lost in thoughts, far away…

_A visit from the taskmaster in the dead of night._

Fear. Horror. Jack could feel his skin crawl.

To be entirely honest, Jack could not even picture Charles as a child. A young sickly teenager, weakened by days of labour under the sun… broken by nights of untold horrors. Jack had never met Albinus in person, just heard his name. All Jack could imagine was silhouettes, one, two, many more. Shadows, tall and large, overpowering the weak body… weak? How could he think of Charles Vane as weak? Yet that light… that fear in his eyes, so well concealed behind lashes and clever words… Jack had seen it too well. No. Jack changed the picture in his mind. Charles may have been malnourished, beaten, young… defiled… but he could not have been weak. At the first opportunity, he had seized his life to rise and become what he was now, the very best of Nassau. The strongest of them all. A man that feared no one.

_But I remember that fear._ Guilt. _Right now, I feel it returning._ Jack felt guilty for what he had done, for bringing back the memories. Guilty, he was guilty… he had no right to know and feel the fear. He had no right to imagine the pain that Charles must have felt. Jack was the worst friend somebody could hope to have.

A part of Jack wanted to comfort Charles. To hold him and just say, it’s okay I… understood. But he could not. He would never… Because he did not really understand. His own innocence and childhood had been taken away in a different way. Nothing that could compare to the Hell that had been reflected by Charles’s pupils. The two men were now sitting in the tavern, a shared bottle of rum between them. Nobody was really caring about their presence, yet they did not talk. There was something in the air, something that made them feel nauseous. Jack imagined that it was the past, leaking out of Charles’s memories and darkening the day. Or maybe it was his shame, the truth tainting the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! Stay tuned for chapter 2! <3


	2. Remember- Charles

Charles was trying to prevent the memories from becoming too vivid again, but ever since he had seen those bodies thrown to the sea… Ever since he had realized, he was there again.

_In the dead of night…_ The first time, he had not understood. The unknown indeed. What had he done wrong, to be taken from his cot by two thugs, brought in front of his master? The smirk on Albinus’s face then… the eyes… But as time wore on, he began to understand. He understood the other side of the coin, why one’s pain could bring pleasure, and how his tears and long hair could be appealing when all he could see was bruises and dirt on his face. He never grew acquainted to the pain. The unknown…

Sometimes they would beat him when taking him. Sometimes only one man, sometimes several. Sometimes Albinus would be watching, sometimes he would take part in the rape. Sometimes they were strangers, sometimes the same kept coming back.

Most of the time, when the taskmaster would drag him away, bleeding but no longer weeping –oh no, that had stopped after the first few months- he would catch a glimpse of gold in Albinus’s hand. And that smirk again.

Was he the only one? Were the others as afraid as he was? All eyes looked to the ground, and nobody dared to speak. Was he as alone as he felt?

Vane shook his head. No, no, no, no. He had killed Albinus. He was somebody now, not just an anonymous back to whip and another child to abuse. He had put his past behind him, and even if this was a lie… it was a necessary lie. His past had shaped him more than he admitted it had. He yearned to be free of those memories, but deep inside, he knew that they would live as long as he was alive.

In the fort, he had wanted to tell the truth to Jack. The boy inside had wanted to throw in Jack’s face all the hurt that he was feeling again, the hurt that should have been buried along with Albinus’s corpse. But the man would never do that. The grown man did not tell tales of his childhood. The man held on to the lie.

He had only said the words that were necessary. The perfect compromise through which the truth could slip. With enough unsaid space to carry everything that had no way to be said. Everything that he did not want to tell, because he was too proud, too fucking proud and if he could not have his pride anymore, who was he?

Those words he had spoken, they had been more than enough. He could see in Jack’s mouth, in his averted gaze and unsure steps, that he had understood what was behind. There was a reason why Vane had made him his quartermaster. There was a reason why after all those years, he knew he could trust Jack. He trusted Jack to have understood, and he also trusted him to never use that knowledge. That was all he really needed right now, along with the contents of the bottle of rum in front of him. To forget, to know at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this chapter! Number 3 should be online tomorrow! <3


	3. Aftermath- Charles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the last chapter! Enjoy!

Between the two of them, the bottle was quickly empty. It was followed by another one and another one… until they stood up, leaving as silently as they had went in a few hours earlier. The sun had sank beneath the sea now, and Nassau’s nightlife was as busy and noisy as it usually was. As they were walking back to the fort, Charles thought he had seen a huge black silhouette in the corner of his eye. He shook his head. There was no need to dwell on the past anymore. Jack had offered him to spend the night at the fort, where there was less company and more rum. Charles had accepted, because this was not pity, just the comfort two friends who did not talk offered each other.

The silhouette kept coming into his mind, in front of his eyes, shifting form. Black hair and broad shoulders. Charles shook his head again. He. Was. Free. Of. His. Past. All of it.

Back inside the fort, the silence became a little bit less uncomfortable as they drank more. They were not face to face anymore, but sitting side by side, the bottle going from hand to hand naturally. Charles was beginning to doze off, and he saw Jack throw him a side glance, his mouth slightly open…

“Don’t fucking say you’re sorry Jack.”

The mouth closed, twitched up. Shoulder to shoulder, they feel asleep.

In the dead of night… who knows what those men fear right now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've liked it! Feel free to leave a kudo or comment! I reallyliked writing it.   
> Oh, and there's a hidden reference... I give you a kiss and some cookies if you find it!


End file.
